Good Company
by read-only13
Summary: Pre-Series. Jenny Shepard needs to rant after work and finds a willing ear in new Secret Service Agent Kate Todd at a Georgetown bar.
1. Blue Eyes

AN1: This is something that crossed my mind after Kill Ari. Jenny seemed more in place at the funeral than a director who hadn't met the agent would be. So maybe she and Kate had met before. I figure this is somewhere after Kate joined the Secret Service and before Jenny and Gibbs ran off to Europe on undercover ops, though I will readily admit to not doing any research about the characters' ages and possible time line overlaps.

AN2: This is rambling and unbeta'd. It's 3am, please forgive me.

* * *

_199?_

This was turning out to be a long night. Kate Todd hadn't really wanted to go out to some random Georgetown bar, but she wasn't about to pass on a night out with her coworkers. New to the Secret Service, Kate was eager to pick up any useful information – advice, gossip, anything that could further her career. If she was going to make the Presidential detail, she needed every advantage she could get. But after 30 minutes of watching her colleagues get smashed on a Thursday night, she'd had enough. Kate wandered over to the bar for a drink of her own.

"FBI?"

Kate turned her head in the direction of the question and saw a red-head sitting on a bar stool with her legs crossed, sipping a martini. She was wearing business skirt, casual blouse, and knee high boots with classy but obscenely high heels. The woman cocked her head, waiting for a reply.

"No," Kate answered, hesitantly. "Why do you ask?"

"You're carrying."

Kate reached for the small of her back where she had holstered her small personal firearm when she left the office and gave the woman a shocked look.

"And you're wearing a suit." Jenny smirked and held out a hand. "Jenny Shepard, NCIS."

Kate shook Jenny's hand. "Kate Todd, Secret Service."

"You're new." Kate gave Jenny a 'how the hell do you know all of this' look.

"I introduce myself as an NCIS agent and I don't get any comments about being one of the 'cowboys.'" The way Jenny made air quotes around 'cowboys' made Kate smile. "Plus you are obviously uncomfortable in this environment, yet you are subjecting yourself to it. Classic probie career move, always looking to move up the ladder so quickly. And you weren't able to hide that you were carrying. Another probie-ism.

"Don't rush it, by the way. Enjoy your probie-ness while you can. It turns out it can get worse when you're no longer a probie. You're all alone in the office, with no fellow probies to support you. Of course, there's the perk of having your own probie to boss around. I mean teach. Your own probie to teach."

This wasn't Jenny's first martini, Kate assessed, but she wasn't drunk. Kate caught the dig about her gun and fired back defensively, "And you're telling me you can carry without a federal agent being able to tell."

"Am I carrying now?" Jenny challenged.

Kate looked over the blouse tucked into Jenny's skirt. No place for a gun at her shoulder or waste. She glanced over the boots. Too tight around the leg and ankle for a gun, she decided. "No."

"And you would be wrong, Secret Service probie."

"Whe…"

"You'll get used to strapping under a skirt eventually," Jenny answered before Kate could finish the question. "Those boots you decided couldn't fit a gun, however, do fit a knife."

Jenny slid the handle of her blade out from her left boot and laughed at Kate's shocked look. "A consequence of working for my current boss. As is my current alcohol consumption. So, are you as uptight as the rest of the suits over at the Secret Service?"

Kate thought for a moment at the out of the blue question. "I've had my fun, but not with coworkers. I like to walk into the office with my self-respect. I have to say, I've already lost respect for several of those guys tonight."

"I'm not a coworker and I'm feeling a bit reckless. Feel like having some fun for a night?" Jenny looked over at Kate with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

Kate looked more worried. "What is your idea of fun?"

"We could break into my boss's house, drink his bourbon, and burn his boat." Jenny smiled at the thought. "Or bribe the girl at the coffee shop to screw with his coffee in the morning. Or get really stinking drunk, outside of the presence of coworkers, and exchange embarrassing federal agent stories that could potentially damage other people's careers, namely, my boss's, though he seems to have some sort of immunity to damage to his reputation."

"What exactly did your boss do to prompt this?" Kate asked.

"He has really blue eyes," Jenny stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

* * *

_2003_

Kate knew she was in for it when NCIS got involved on Air Force One. And she knew with one look at Gibbs that his were the blue eyes.


	2. Red Heads

AN1: I've decided that this is going to be a series of conversations between Jenny and Kate. And by series, I mean more than one. So here's a second.

AN2: Related to AN1 - I removed the ending of the last chapter that made it seem so final. If/when I decide there is an end, I will add it appropriately. Also, in case you didn't notice, I changed the name of the story. Blue Eyes is now the name of the first chapter. I don't like my new title (too boring) so I'm up for suggestions.

AN3: I seemed to have forgotten a disclaimer. So I now disclaim ownership of anything below except for the words in the order they've been typed.

AN4: It's only 1am this time, but it's still unbeta'd so forgive me.

* * *

_199? - A few months later_

Kate wandered around Georgetown on the way home from some event or another. Each one seemed the same – women in fancy dresses schmoozing with men in tuxedos. Some were more elaborate than others; at this event, the women were wearing dresses she estimated cost in the thousands and diamonds that cost more than that. Unfortunately for Kate, more elaborate meant she had to dress up too. This evening found her in a knee length black Armani dress that had cost half a paycheck.

Kate wasn't sure how long she could take working security at these events. She longed for a challenge. Maybe an investigative role. But really, she longed for the Presidential detail. She was still too junior an agent for either.

Kate found herself outside the bar her colleagues had dragged her to a few months before. She smirked as she thought about the rather one-sided conversation she'd had with that red headed NCIS agent._ What was her name? Oh, right, Jenny Shepard. _Kate had been around long enough now to have heard stories about NCIS. There was one time some agent tried to take a counterfeiting case from her friend Marcy. The agent turned over about $50,000 in counterfeit bills. It seemed the agent saw it fit to withhold about $100,000 worth of counterfeit hundreds while they were working on taking down an artifacts smuggling ring.

Now she needed a drink. She went into the establishment and, alone this time, walked straight to the bar. As she called the bartender over, she heard a familiar voice to her left.

"Agent Todd. What a pleasure to see you again."

There was Jenny Shepard, sitting on the same stool as a few months before, in a pinstripe skirt suit and impossibly high heels, legs crossed, martini in hand. Not her first drink again either, Kate observed.

Remembering the motive for Jenny's drinking Kate asked cautiously, "So what has your boss done this time, Agent Shepard?"

"Aside from thinking I need protecting from the world because I'm a woman?"

"And here I was thinking it was just me." Kate laughed. "They tell me I need to wear a dress to events. Then they assume I can't carry my service weapon while wearing a dress and partner me with the burliest agent on our team, who happens to have wandering hands."

Kate picked up the gin and tonic the bartender had put down for her and took a healthy sip.

"Did you take my comment to heart?" Jenny asked. "I seem to remember telling you that probies don't know how to carry. You've learned quite well, I almost can't tell that you have it strapped... well... somewhere you'd rather the whole bar not know about. It's a nice dress by the way. It goes well with is Sig, no? I find everything goes well with a Sig. A suit, a fancy dress, the little black dress, jeans. It doesn't matter where you holster it, it's always nice." Jenny looked down and then back up. "Do you sleep with it too?"

Kate sputtered and coughed on her drink. "Sleep with it?"

"Yup, that way when you're on a case in the boondocks and your boss sees it fit to pick the lock to your hotel room to wake you up, he learns not to." Jenny smiled a triumphant grin. "I nearly shot him, too. Scared the bejesus out of him. Didn't think that was possible. He seemed to think that because I didn't answer my phone or his knock at the door at 6am when we'd finally gone to sleep around 4am, he needed to make sure I was still alive. Never did find out what he wanted to talk to me about. He just mumbled something about never being unreachable."

"Did you ever drink his bourbon and burn his boat?"

"Nope. Still can't stomach the stuff, not for lack of trying. And the boat, I didn't have the heart. I just added cream and sugar to his coffee."

"And that's bad?"

"Never mess with a marine's coffee if you want to live." Jenny said solemnly, then broke into giggles as she remembered the head slaps her teammates had received that day.

"So back to my original question, what has he done now? Aside from breaking into your hotel room, since you seem to have exacted revenge for that already."

"He has a _thing_ for red-heads."

Kate just laughed.

* * *

_2003_

Kate saw Gibbs with the red head in the convertible. And she saw Gibbs flirt with almost every red head that crossed their path. Jenny had been right - he definitely had a _thing_ for red heads.


	3. Ex Wives

AN1: Apparently this is what happens when you have an important law paper due - you write fiction.

AN2: Still un-beta'd, still don't own it, etc, etc, so on and so forth.

* * *

_199?_

It was only a few weeks since Kate had last been in Georgetown. She was in much better spirits tonight. Agent Bauer had told her that she was showing real potential and she'd be able to start on a counterfeiting case the next week. Kate was imagining what it would be like not to have to dress up for protection details for a while and was wandering around the city on her adrenaline rush.

Once again, she found herself at the same bar. She went inside and found herself hoping to see a tipsy NCIS Agent.

She wasn't disappointed. Jenny Shepard was sitting at the bar. She wasn't her normal classy self however - she had her elbows on the counter, her head bowed, a 3/4 full tumbler of amber liquid in her hand.

As Kate approached, the bartender seemed to recognize her. "Seems your friend can't handle her bourbon. Wanna help her out?"

Kate slid onto the stool next to Jenny. "Agent Shepard. I see you're still practicing drinking for the boss? What'd he do this time? I know it has to be him if your drinking bourbon."

"Really? And why do you say that?" Jenny snarked.

"I'm an observant federal agent."

"And it has nothing to do that past two times you've seen me here, I've been drunk and complaining about him? It doesn't take a federal agent to figure that one out Secret Service Probie." Jenny's words were curt.

Kate decided that 'complaining' probably was not the best word to describe how Jenny talked about her boss but thought if she said so, she might find herself looking straight into Jenny's personal firearm, which by this point, Kate was convinced she always had on her somewhere. "Wow, bitchy tonight aren't we, Agent Shepard?"

The bartender interjected, "I told you she couldn't handle her bourbon. I've seen her down plenty of martinis, but she's still on her first glass."

"Shove it," Jenny said to the bartender. "Well Agent Todd, what _else_ do you remember about my boss?" Jenny stressed the word 'agent.'

Kate remembered most of their previous conversations; it was probably the only time she'd enjoyed herself in a bar since her sophomore year of college. But she wasn't sure Jenny really wanted to know or was just setting Kate up to be on the receiving end of a tirade. She hesitated, "blue eyes and a thing for red heads... a boat, bourbon..."

"Exactly! A thing for red heads!" Jenny seemed to be recovering some of the energy Kate remembered. "He also has a thing for ex-wives."

"Ex-wives?"

"Yes, ex, former, previous, past, no longer. Ex." Jenny took a long sip from her glass and grimaced.

Kate looked confused. "So? He dates red headed divorcees. Aside from explaining some of his apparent personality traits, what's the problem?"

Jenny took another drink. "He doesn't _date_ ex-wives; he _has_ them," she coughed out.

"Them? Plural?"

Jenny laughed weakly. "He has two. Last one took a golf club to his head."

"Well, from what you've told me, the fact that he's been married is surprising. That he's since divorced, not so much." Then Kate smiled; she'd just found her chance to get the NCIS agent back for the probie remark. "Do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Why?" Jenny appeared to be losing her energy again.

"If you think the ex-wives are a good thing, logical reasoning says that he just got divorced, or you just found out he's divorced, and you're looking forward to having him all to yourself. If you think the ex-wives are bad, you're just worried about being ex-wife number three."

Jenny banged her forehead against the bar. Kate thought she may have heard Jenny mutter "bad."

"Come on, Shepard," Kate said sympathetically. "Let's get you home."

Kate took the now almost empty glass out of Jenny's hand and set it on the bar. She took out some cash and tossed it towards the bartender as she helped Jenny to her feet. She felt bad about implying, if not flat out stating, that Jenny was in love with her boss, especially since she realized what kind of toll a personal conflict in her professional life would take on Kate. Kate was very glad that her boss did not have blue eyes or a thing for brunettes and was happily married to his first wife.

* * *

_2003_

As Kate heard more stories about Gibb's ex-wives, she noticed there was one more than Jenny had mentioned. Somehow it didn't surprise her but she was certain that Jenny was not ex-wife number three.


	4. The FBI

AN1: I feel like this is getting worse. Please tell me. There really is a reason that I don't normally write. I'm not terribly happy with this; it kind of ran away from me.

AN2: While I do not have the problems Jenny and Gibbs have, this was, in part, prompted by my boss pissing me off last night.

AN3: Still don't own it. Still not beta'd. Still written at an obscenely late hour.

* * *

_199?_

Kate wandered over to the same Georgetown bar feeling a bit restless. Her counterfeiting case was not going well. They'd hit a roadblock when the TSA let their main suspect slip out of the country and everyone seemed to be blaming her. Just because she was new to the team didn't mean every setback was her fault. She'd gotten the BOLO out to Reagan International, Dulles, Baltimore, hell, every major airport on the eastern seaboard and all of the small private airstrips and TSA had managed to let him on a commercial flight to Prague. It was definitely not her fault. She needed a drink._  
_

"Agent Shepard." Kate acknowledged her now common companion at the bar.

Jenny turned to Kate. "It's Jenny. You've taken my drunk self home and were kind enough to leave some aspirin and water out and you've been listening to me bitch about my boss for weeks. The least you could do is call me by my first name."

"Then it's Kate."

Kate and Jenny settled into a comfortable silence at the bar, each sipping their drinks: Kate her martini and Jenny her bourbon.

"Thank god you're not FBI," Jenny spoke up suddenly.

"Why?"

"I'm currently banned from speaking to them. Hell, from having any interaction with them at all. My whole team is actually."

"Your boss's fault, I assume?"

"How'd you guess?" Jenny smirked.

Kate took another drink. "So what did he do?"

"He got into a jurisdiction dispute."

"There's no way it's that simple. Your boss does not seem like the type to have a jurisdiction _dispute_." Kate stressed the work 'dispute.'

"Well, turf _war_ might be a more appropriate description. But for once, I'm on his side for this. Just because this guy is sniping only Navy Lieutenants who served on destroyers and have red hair and green eyes doesn't mean that he's a serial killer. And the FBI doesn't have to claim jurisdiction on a case just because they can."

"You don't think there might be a personal connection there?"

"Well Boss was a sniper, so he may be taking that personally."

"Have there been any female victims?"

"The first one. Why do you ask?"

"You don't think the red hair and green eyes have something to do with..." Kate didn't get to finish her sentence when she felt the heel of Jenny's shoe press into her toes.

"Don't finish that sentence if you want to live, Kate."

"And what are you going to do? Shoot me because I'm pointing out that you and your boss might..." Kate felt Jenny knock her leg against her own. She thought Jenny was just being playful until she realized she was feeling a tiny .22 in Jenny's ankle holster against her leg. Maybe Jenny was serious. "A little touchy on the subject, Jenny?"

"Shut it. Don't you want to hear about the turf war itself?"

"I'm training as a profiler, so actually the motivations behind the acts are just as important to me." Jenny glared. "Is that a copy of the glare that your boss reserves for you. Or is his a little more smoldering..."

Jenny kicked Kate again and downed the rest of her bourbon in one gulp. "Anyway... Boss doesn't like... "

"We'll get to the part where you call him 'Boss' later."

"You really have a death wish tonight, don't you Agent Todd. As I was saying, Boss doesn't like losing cases to the FBI. So he had us make copies of all of the evidence and hide it before the FBI came to collect everything. That way we could keep working the cases."

"Well that doesn't sound too bad."

"I haven't gotten to the good stuff yet. At the latest crime scene, he mislaid the trajectory strings as a joke so when the FBI arrived so they spent hours looking for a bullet where none existed."

"Oh."

"That uptight FBI agent went straight to the director. Of course, while he was talking to the director, we may have snuck out with the bullet."

Kate's head shot up. "We?"

"Well, by we, I mean me."

"He's really rubbing off on you. First the bourbon, now 'inter-agency relations.' Next thing you know, you'll be building a boat in your basement."

"Don't have a basement," she slurred slightly. "And I wasn't the worst of it."

"How much worse could it get? I mean that your boss would be willing to pull?"

Jenny leaned down the bar to order another bourbon. "He would never go so far as to damage the case. But I think the latest divorce is getting to him. Something about more alimony. I don't think he's ever physically restrained an FBI agent who almost contaminated a crime scene before. Glared at, yelled at, forcefully escorted, yes. Handcuffed, no. That was pretty much the last straw for us with the director; that's when he ordered us away from the FBI. Not just that team, the entire FBI."

Kate was concerned about just the glaring, yelling, and forcefully escorting part; handcuffing a fellow Federal agent was beyond her comprehension. She was beginning to worry about what her first professional interaction with NCIS might be like. If every lead agent at NCIS was like Jenny's boss, Kate was dreading it.

* * *

_2003_

As soon as she realized she was dealing with NCIS on Air Force One, she waited to see if her earlier fears about working with NCIS were well founded. Then Gibbs hijacked Air Force One (or AF 29000, as it were). She'd been right. Or maybe it really was just Gibbs.


	5. Head Slaps

AN1: I didn't expect to really care about reviews, especially since I write because I feel like it and not with any particular plan or purpose. But it turns out they really do create that warm and fuzzy feeling. So thank you.

AN2: Still don't own it. Still not beta'd. And just to make things better, I wrote this while intoxicated myself. Which means it might be edited once I sober up, so check back. If I change it, I'll change the author's note too so you know. Intoxication is also the only reason there is an update right now.

* * *

_199?_

For the first time, when Kate arrived at the bar, she found that Jenny was nowhere to be seen. She'd been hoping to see the red-head and vent about her co-workers who, after blaming her for everything that went wrong in their case, saw it fit to take credit for the work she had done to solve it. Kate sat down on a stool at the end of the bar, ordered her martini, and waited.

A few minutes later, Jenny walked up to the bar and plopped down on the stool next to Kate. It looked like she came straight from work- she still had her service weapon on her belt and was wearing a full suit, something Kate had never seen on her; Jenny had always been dressed down at the bar. Jenny also looked a little worse for the wear.

"He head-slapped me today," Jenny said without preamble. She turned down the bar and yelled to the bartender, "A bourbon, please." Jenny took her drink, knocked it back, and ordered another, "Make this one a double, barkeep." The bartender rolled his eyes at her.

Kate was about to ask who 'he' was when she remember that she was talking to Jenny. "Head-slapped?"

"Yeah. He does this thing where he whacks you upside the back of the head. A wake up call, he says it is. Wake up call, my ass." Jenny rubbed the back of her head unconsciously.

"And he head-slapped you? Is this a normal thing?" Kate looked scandalized. If she remembered correctly, the Department of Defense was very clear that any physical contact between co-workers must be strictly professional or they'd run the risk of sexual harassment claims.

"No! That's reserved for the guys on the team. Me he just glares at." Jenny said harshly. Then her voice faded and she got a dreamy look on her face, "with those intense blue eyes..."

Kate coughed loudly. "Um. Jenny. You were talking about receiving a head-slap from your boss, not how hot you think he is. I'd think they're mutually exclusive concepts, but I'd never put anything past you at this point."

Jenny jerked back reality and had the sense to look a bit embarrassed. She took a large gulp from her glass without even flinching at the burn.

"So what earned you this head-slap?"

"I was bored, so I put milk and sweetener in his coffee."

"What's so bad about that?" Kate sipped her martini.

"Oh, that was just the start of it. I convinced him that Decker, one of the guys on the team, had done it. He went through most of the day without coffee and blaming it on Decker. That was great; Decker's going to have a bruise til the next decade from the number of times he got whacked." Jenny smiled at the thought.

"I take the boss without coffee is not a good thing."

"Dear God no. Think Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

"So you must not like Decker that much."

"He needs to learn to keep his hands to himself."

"Don't they all." Both Kate and Jenny took a drink at that and sat in silence for a moment.

"Of course, according to Decker, I need to learn that as well." Jenny started speaking again. Kate gave Jenny a look and Jenny quickly tried to correct herself, "Away from the boss."

Kate smirked. "Are you getting 'hands-on' with the boss now?" Jenny kicked her.

"The boss's stuff," Jenny corrected again. And downed the remaining bourbon in her glass. "Apparently touching the boss' stuff makes him mad at the rest of the team regularly. I had no idea." Jenny said sarcastically. "When I'm bored, I move his stapler, change the background or screen saver on his computer, pick the locks on his drawers, little things."

"Have you found anything good? In his drawers?"

"Nope. Don't know why he keeps them locked." Jenny said nonchalantly as she leaned down the bar. "Another bourbon, please," she yelled to the bartender before turning back to Kate. "But it's great watching him after I've messed with his computer. He's not exactly technology literate to begin with so when something 'magically' changes... well, it's something to see. He gets so frustrated. His face gets all twisted and his eyes get blue-er."

"More blue."

Jenny looked confused. "What?"

"More blue. I don't think blue-er is a word." Kate smiled to herself. Interrupting Jenny could be a lot of fun.

"Whatever." Jenny downed another bourbon. "Don't you want to hear what I did today?"

"I don't know. It's more fun to hear about your boss' eyes."

"Kate..." Jenny gave Kate a warning glare and moved her hand towards her Sig Sauer.

"I'm sorry Jenny. It's just... does you're boss know what you think of him?" Kate was trying to suppress laughter.

"I don't think so. I mean, his divorce is pretty recent, I think, and I do try to hide it at work. On second thought, he keeps looking at me like..." Jenny faded off and let her head fall to the bar.

Jenny must be drunk, Kate thought, since she had just admitted to being attracted to her boss. Kate counted quickly and realized that Jenny had essentially had four bourbons where a few weeks ago she couldn't even swallow a sip.

Kate couldn't help laughing now. "Jenny, you are so screwed."

Understatement of the year, Jenny thought.

* * *

_2004_

When Kate realized that Gibbs never head-slapped her, she realized that whatever Jenny did that day must have been particularly spectacular to get Gibbs that riled up. She wished she hadn't interrupted Jenny so much; then she'd know what it was and be able to make sure she was never on the receiving end of one.


	6. Lawyers

AN1: I have an important law paper due on Thursday, ergo I'm writing this.

AN2: Ok, obviously Jenny and Gibbs are a thing, but how come there's nothing (or almost nothing) written about "how close" Tony and Jenny got while Gibbs was in Mexico, either as friends or more. I thought it was fairly blatant but vague on the show. (Re-watching season 4 is/was part of my procrastination plans.) Anyone want to write it?

AN3: Angel Pagan hit a home run, which makes me very happy. And the Mets won, which makes me very, very happy. This has nothing to do with anything except that it's baseball season and my emotional state is [unfortunately] tied to the ups and downs of the Mets.

AN4: I still don't own it. Potential beta pending, so all mistakes are still my fault and the fault of the wee hours of the morning. I'm once again going to make this subject to editing.

* * *

_199?_

Kate was running later than usual this week. She'd been assigned to a security detail at a formal event again and was dying to get out of her slinky black dress. One downside of formal events was a lot of testosterone mixed with a lot of alcohol - neither made for a good night for the single women. It was almost worse if you were 'on the job.' Kate felt like a magnet for slime-bags. She needed "girl time."

A night at the bar with Jenny while wearing comfortable clothes was the closed Kate could get to a "girls' night." She swung by her office to change into a blouse, jeans, and flats. They felt like pajamas after a night in a dress and heels. Kate took a cab over to the normal Georgetown bar and offered the cabbie an extra $20 to step on it, hoping Jenny would be there.

When Kate got there, Jenny was at the bar in her normal state - sitting on a stool with her legs crossed, foot dangling, bourbon in hand. She was dressed as if she had come straight from work and was still carrying her service weapon, so either she'd been there for quite a while or had left work quite late.

Jenny provided an answer to Kate's unasked question. "I was kept after school today to clean erasers."

"What?" Kate picked up the martini that had magically appeared in front of her. They were there too often if the bartender didn't wait for them to order, she thought.

"Remember I told you I put milk and sugar in the boss' coffee? Well, it turns out there's an actual rule against it. Rule 23, to be specific. 'Never mess with a Marine's coffee if you want to live.' I violated a rule. I was being punished."

"Punished how? I'm assuming you weren't actually cleaning erasers." Kate tried to imagine what sort of creative punishments Jenny's boss could come up with, but the answer was surprisingly mundane.

"Paperwork," Jenny grumbled. She recited her boss' ruling, "All paperwork on all open, recently closed, and cold cases must be up to date before you leave the building."

Kate winced. It might be mundane but there was nothing worse than paperwork.

"So messing with his coffee got you paperwork duty?"

"No. I've been properly punished for that already."

Kate wanted to ask what that punishment was, but she restrained herself; Jenny's service weapon was visible and Kate's mind was going somewhere bound to get her in trouble. "So what did you do this time?"

"You assume I actually did something?" Jenny acted offended. Kate gave her a look. "I violated another one of the sacred rules." Jenny showed obvious disdain for whatever rules her boss had.

"How many of these rules are there?"

"He says 50, but I've never heard them all and they're definitely not in order. I think he makes them up as he goes. Today's was Rule 13. 'Never, ever involve lawyers.' I went and got JAG involved 'without his permission.' As if I had a choice." Jenny scoffed. "The director pulled in a JAG lawyer to oversee us once I pulled my gun on a suspect when I came up on him while off-duty."

"I don't see a problem with that." Kate really didn't see a problem. She was either missing something or Jenny was rubbing off on her now.

"Well, let's put it this way. I went on an unauthorized surveillance mission authorized by the boss, my boss, not the director, and we may or may not have been previously threatened with harassment suits by this suspect's lawyers. Somehow this is all my fault even though it was under his orders. He says I shouldn't have gotten caught."

"Oh." Kate felt better having been missing a piece of the puzzle; she was a very by-the-book agent and would hate to lose her touch in that respect. Kate couldn't believe the audacity of these NCIS agents, though after spending time with Jenny it was becoming less shocking.

"We are now being babysat by JAG for the foreseeable future. The boss is pissed."

"I'm sure he knows plenty of ways to get around using lawyers."

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, he knows his way around them, in every way possible. He was married to one. That's where the rule came from."

* * *

_2003_

Kate watched Gibbs interact with Commander Coleman. It was clear that Gibbs had an obvious and deep-seeded hatred for all lawyers and no lawyer showed any love for NCIS. Or maybe it was just Gibbs... again.


	7. Undercover I

AN1: For the purposes of this story, assume last call at bars is 2am like in New York rather than midnight like in Boston. I have no idea when last call is in DC.

AN2: This is titled _Undercover I_ because I have a feeling that if there are more conversations to come, they will probably involve more undercover related things and at some point I stop getting creative with chapter title names.

AN3: I'm still writing this. I swear. Blame exams.

AN4: I still own nothing. All mistakes are the fault of the beta, right? You can blame them all on Jennygrl now. Just kidding; they're all mine. But much thanks for the help where I got stuck.

* * *

_199?_

Kate had another security detail at yet another fancy function. It went later than most and it was almost 1:30 am before Kate made it to the bar. She hoped Jenny might still be there but expected to be drinking alone tonight.

Kate walked in to an almost empty bar. Jenny's usual stool was unoccupied. Kate slid into hers and the bartender passed her the usual martini. She looked out the window and watched the few people still walking around Georgetown at that hour. Mostly college students, she figured. And law students, she thought, recalling her one year stint in hell.

She must have zoned out for a few minutes because all of a sudden she heard a familiar voice telling the bartender to "make it a double." She turned her head and saw Jenny, her hair mussed, wearing a work blouse, an extremely short denim skirt, and knee high black shiny boots.

"Don't say anything," Jenny preempted any comment Kate could make. "I was undercover as a hooker and didn't have spare clothes, except for this shirt." Jenny pulled at her blouse in disdain and scrunched her nose.

"I'm surprised you don't have a full change of clothes at your desk."

"I haven't been home in several days; I ran out of changes. I needed a drink faster than I could get home though and I wasn't expecting company while drinking tonight."

"So why were you undercover?"

"It's related to a drug case. We caught some petty officers dealing coke. We linked them to this drug ring that also dealt in prostitution and next thing I know, I'm wearing hooker boots and mini skirt."

"And how did the op go?"

"We got our guy."

Kate gave her a pleading look. "Come on. All I get to do is screen people at important functions and stare at $100 bills for inaccuracies. Can't you give me more than that?"

Jenny took a sip of her bourbon before starting. "Well, we had intel that the head of the ring liked to frequent his prostitutes so we set me up as a new girl on the street, right in front of their 'headquarters.' We figured his guys would bite at the chance to bring in more dough for their boss. They did. The first night out they brought me in to see our target, said I was encroaching on their territory. He gave me a choice of work for him or... well, work for him."

Kate got the picture and winced.

"The good thing about going as a pro is that they need you looking good so they won't rough you up if you cooperate. That was last night. Anyway, I couldn't carry under this skirt," she gestured to the mini skirt, "and we couldn't wire me up so we needed someone near by for back up."

Jenny held up a finger telling Kate to hold on for a minute while she threw back the rest of her drink. "After we got what we needed and were ready to take the target down, they needed to get me out clean. So my boss played a john. To the T, I might add, sleaze and all. You'd think he'd leered at my legs all the time."

Kate snickered, but Jenny didn't appear to notice and continued, "He went up to the pimp and asked for... who knows what... and the pimp started directing him towards this other girl. He told him, 'no, I want a red head' and was quite lewdly descriptive of why. The guy finally sent him over to me and we needed to get out quickly at this point, so he grabbed me around the waist and half-carried me into an alley for cover. We thought we were good until one of the lower level dealers started coming down the fire escape from the building. That's when he pulled one of my legs around his waist and shoved his fingers through my hair. Made it look good til the other guy was clear. He had an earwig, so we knew when Pacci and Burley had taken down the target. Then we took off. So we got the guy." Jenny stopped short.

Kate watched entranced as Jenny told the story. "And... "

"What?" Jenny nearly spat.

Kate winced at her mood change. "What happened with your boss?"

"He hasn't said a word to me since then."

Well that explained a lot, thought Kate. The young Secret Service Agent shook her head and took another sip of her martini.

"Jesus, Shepard. Maybe you and your boss should jus-"

"Do _not_ finish that sentence Agent Todd, if you want to live!" Jenny snapped and glared viciously while getting the bartender's attention for another drink.

Kate shrunk back and put up her hands up in surrender. She was not about to fight with a drunk woman in denial.

* * *

_2004_

Kate was elated when going undercover for her meant being a Marine captain. Compared to Jenny's experience as a hooker, having a sniper aiming her way was better.


	8. Rules

AN1: These may no longer be in chronological order since I don't want to tie myself to a time line. If one belongs before another, I'll let you know.

AN2: I don't own anything. I even rent my textbooks now.

AN3: I banged the back of my head really hard last night and this is what came out.

* * *

_199?_

Kate and Jenny meeting at the bar had become an unspoken weekly ritual for them. Kate knew that if Jenny wasn't already sipping her bourbon when she got there, she was certain to be along soon. It helped Kate remember that there was a world outside of the Secret Service, even if it did involve another federal agency.

It was another week and another fancy security detail for Kate. She didn't mind them so much now since it was part of her profiling training. Though she still hated dressing up, she was getting better at carrying her service weapon discretely while still performing her duties. She could almost remain comfortable for an entire evening.

Jenny walked in uncharacteristically late this week. Rushed in was more like it. She looked particularly flushed and flustered. As soon as Kate saw her walk in, she ordered a double for her and handed it to her the second she sat down. Kate risked Jenny's wrath and spoke up. "Running late tonight Jenny? You're not screwing the boss yet, are you? It would explain the... " Kate gestured to Jenny's appearance.

"Shove it, Todd."

"Sorry Jenny, I couldn't resist. You make it so easy."

They sat in silence for a while, each enjoying their drinks. Or rather, Kate enjoyed her drink while Jenny downed her first and then enjoyed her second.

"Rough day at work?" Kate asked.

"Have you ever known me to have any other kind."

"Who's at fault this time, you or your boss?"

Jenny seemed to take personal affront to the accusation. "Since when am I ever at fault?"

"You did run off with a bullet once. And confront an off-limits suspect. And plenty of things I'm sure you haven't told me," Kate reminded her.

"Those were all under his orders. They were _so_ not my fault."

"Have you ever done anything not on his orders?"

Jenny sipped her drink and thought about it for a while. "Once, when I was still trying to prove myself, I went back out to a crime scene alone to look for more evidence. I figured if I found something, he'd stop questioning my judgment, maybe let me do something on my own."

Kate knew when Jenny said 'he' she meant her boss, not the director. Kate doubted anyone besides her boss ever questioned her judgment. Jenny seemed like a highly capable agent, one destined to go far. "Did it work?"

Jenny continued, "I started poking around at the scene and came up with the murder weapon. While not wearing gloves. So my fingerprints were all over it. 'Rule 2 - always wear gloves at a crime scene.' He didn't let me out on my own for months."

Kate stored that away for future reference: note to self - 'always wear gloves at a crime scene.' "So what happened?"

"We got the guy anyway. I never would have lived that down had I not done something worse the next week."

Jenny stopped as if her story was complete while Kate just waited for her to continue. She wanted to know what Jenny had done.

After a few minutes of silence, Kate felt compelled to ask. "What did you do?"

"Oh, it was nothing professional, not related to the case at all."

"Come on, Jenny. You've got this whole build up and suspense going and you're just going to leave me with 'I did something else.' I'm dying for something interesting here. Am I going to have to start making inappropriate guesses about what you may have done?"

"Feeling cheeky tonight, Kate? You really want to know what I did?"

"If it's not going to get me shot, sure."

"I invited his wife to an office party, as a gesture of friendship or as a way of apologizing or something. Apparently their marriage was on the fritz and being invited to an office party by his female partner did not help things. She didn't know he had a female partner, let alone a red head. I thought I was just being nice. Really. No ulterior motives on this one. I didn't know he'd told everyone never to invite her to these things. She came and ended up making a huge scene. He blamed the entire thing on me, since I was the one who invited her."

"How'd you get out of the dog house on that one?

"I just used another rule. Rule 18 - 'It is better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission.' I think he's starting to regret teaching me that one since I use it so often now." Jenny smiled evilly, "'I'm sorry I put milk in your coffee Boss. Rule 18.' 'I'm sorry I encrypted the files on your computer so you can't read them Boss. Rule 18.' The rules only supposed to work in his favor."

Kate snickered. "How do you know inviting his wife wasn't in his favor? Didn't he want the divorce? You just made it easier on him."

"I never thought of it that way." Jenny pondered the concept for a while. "Somehow I don't think I should tell him that theory though, definitely not right now."

Again they sat in a comfortable silence.

Finally Kate asked, "So why were you running late today?"

"Meeting with the director. I just found out that I'm going to be out of town for a while."

"Why?"

"Undercover mission. In Europe. With the Boss."

* * *

_2003_

Kate kicked herself when she forgot Rule 2 on Air Force One. But she smiled to herself every time Gibbs taught her a new rule. She was sure Jenny had found some way to abuse each one._  
_


	9. Marseilles

AN1: My vision of the missions in Europe is that they weren't too long and weren't strung together, so there are trips back to the States in between. Plus, this way I can write about them all individually if I want. If someone wants to give me a time line and/or fix whatever I get wrong, feel free.

AN2: I have a major ginormously important law paper due soon, so I wrote this. At 2am. Again.

AN3: There is a gratuitous mention of baseball in here at the beginning because baseball is my religion. I was going to trash talk the Washington Nationals but then I realized that they were still in Montreal during this since they didn't move to DC until 2005. And Kate's from Indiana where they don't have baseball, so I haven't made her a fan of any particular team.

_

* * *

199?_

It'd been a while since Kate had company at the bar. She knew Jenny was off gallivanting around Europe and was waiting for stories of undercover glory when she came back. In the meantime, she enjoyed the comfort of a place where she could be without her co-workers and where the bartender knew to bring her a drink and stay away.

Kate came in and found herself alone again. The bartender slid her martini over to her and left her to her thoughts. She was so lost in thought (or the baseball game on the TV above the bar) that she didn't see Jenny walk in.

"I'm sleeping with my boss." Jenny said from over Kate's shoulder.

Kate nearly spit out her drink and whipped her head around. "What?"

"I'm. Sleeping. With. My. Boss." Jenny repeated slower.

Kate smiled this time. "So when did this happen?"

"Marseilles. An attic. And a lot of free time."

"Well you certainly seem happier and less irritable than when I last saw you. I told you that you should just go for it."

Jenny had an already empty glass in her hand, a smile on her face, and a gleam in her eyes. "And how have you been, Agent Todd. Enjoying life with the Secret Service much?"

"Yet no less snarky," Kate remarked, continuing her previous statement. "I'm moving up in the world, almost finished with the profiling training. Apparently, I'm pretty good at it, so they want to fast track me into the advanced training program. Career-wise, it's a wonderful opportunity to move towards the presidential detail. But you weren't looking for information about me. You're just looking to find a way to talk more about your time in France. So talk."

"I can see the profiling training is working." Jenny said. Kate stuck out her tongue. "But since you are so eager to hear more, let me tell you. The overseas investigation thing is amazing. Really boring actually. I think it's just using that spare time to work on more interesting pursuits that's fun. I can't tell you what I was actually there to do. 'Need to know' and all that."

Kate observed that Jenny's speech kept getting faster and faster. "Jenny, just spit it out before it kills you."

"One night, we had way to much free time and, in such a small space, we were constantly on each others' nerves."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Kate snickered.

Jenny continued. "Anyway... we were going at it and all of a sudden, it went quiet. Then we were kissing. It was just like in the movies. And things moved rather quickly from there. Lots of kissing. Lots of sex. A little bit of work here and there."

Jenny and Kate sat in silence as Jenny remembered and Kate imagined.

"Are you back with your old team now? Do they know?" Kate asked.

"Yes and no. If they knew, they'd annoy me. Then I'd have to shoot them and that would just get messy.

"I must have impressed the higher ups along the way as well. I'm headed back to Europe soon. I don't know where or for how long. Kate, you should really get yourself a boyfriend. Or girlfriend if you lean that way. Or maybe even if you don't. You can't always rely on me for excitement," Jenny teased. "And in all the time I've known you, I've never heard you talk about anyone."

Kate glared at Jenny. "When have you given me any time to talk?" Kate did a high-pitched imitation of Jenny, "My boss this, my boss that. My boss has gorgeous eyes. My boss builds a boat in his basement."

"I don't sound like that," Jenny argued.

"Ya kinda do," interrupted the bartender. Kate and Jenny sent him death glares.

"Now you're sleeping with him. Lord knows I'm never going to hear the end of that. Just so you know, I don't need or want the intimate details."

The bartender risked their wrath as he swept up their glasses and put down a new round. "But I do."

Both Jenny and Kate reached for their service weapons.

* * *

200?

Kate compared her time at NCIS to Jenny's escapades. Jenny went to France. Kate's first NCIS trip outside of the continental US was to Guantanamo Bay. Jenny got to have super secret spy sex. Kate got to share a bathroom with DiNozzo. Life was _so_ not fair.


	10. Serbia

AN1: I changed the name of the story because there's another ongoing story called 'Conversations' that had slipped my mind. It's awesome, though, and it was here first.

AN2: More urgent law paper writing, ergo more frequent non-law writing.

AN3: I know my time line is questionable. I don't know if the ones about the missions in Europe are even going to indicate what order they belong in. But Serbia_ is_ after Marseilles, no? So I'm good for now. If they do need to be re-arranged, re-order the chapters and let you know.

AN4: I don't and won't beg for reviews. But they do give me a pretty awesome feeling.

* * *

_199?_

Kate was ecstatic. She'd just received confirmation that she was on the fast track for the presidential detail. Sure, she knew she still had a few more years to go, but for now she deserved to celebrate. She also was eager to share the news with her NCIS friend. At least now she'd have _something_ to rival 'need to know' missions in Europe. This warranted a trip to the bar.

She knew Jenny was back in town; Jenny had given her a quick call when she got back. After quite a few random meetings, they'd finally exchanged phone numbers. Not that it did much good for general communication since Jenny was always out of the country. It mainly served to arrange their meetings.

"How's sex with the boss?" It was Kate's turn to sneak up on Jenny, who was already knee deep in her bourbon.

Jenny didn't flinch. "Need to know. You don't," she shot back and looked down the bar.

Kate sat down and the bartender slid her her martini and walked away slowly. Kate looked up, glared, and reached towards her waist and the bartender walked a little faster. "It's great; I don't even have to pull out my weapon and he goes away. Apparently some men are trainable."

Jenny laughed. "Now that he's out of ear shot... He's officially my partner now. And the sex was well facilitated by being stuck in a tiny farm house for a week. Though the living conditions themselves left much to be desired. The stench of cows... "

"You're there doing all this secret undercover spy stuff and they can't spring for a nice hotel or something?"

"Sometimes you need to lay low for a while." Jenny gave Kate a look that said 'don't ask.'

"At least you travel first class and stuff, right?" Some of this undercover stuff was sounding less fun now. Especially since Kate had Air Force One to look forward to.

Jenny scrunched her nose. "We're pretty low on the federal law enforcement food chain. We get whatever Navy transport is going where we need to go. It can be rough."

"So you haven't made it into the 'mile-high club'?"

"God no. He sleeps through every trip on every transport. He claims it's from his time in the Marines. He finds it relaxing," she scoffed. "And I spend my time throwing up in a plastic bag on most flights."

"Air Force One is sounding so good right now."

Jenny looked confused.

Kate beamed. "I'm going to be on the presidential detail. It's as official as it can be at this stage. In a few years, I'll be traveling on Air Force One. Staying in the best hotels. Protecting the president."

"All of a sudden, your job sounds better than mine." Jenny actually sounded jealous.

Kate was surprised at Jenny's reaction "But I don't get to sleep with my boss."

"Partner, Kate. Partner. It doesn't sound quite so... inappropriate... if you say it that way."

"So is your _arrangement_ just a European thing? Or do you get to play when you're home too?" Kate went digging for details.

"Not getting any on your own still, Kate? You should really think about taking home one of the boys at the Secret Service for a little fun. Maybe if you got one of them out of those over-starched suits, you'd be able to live without the details of my relationships," Jenny teased, suddenly no longer jealous.

Kate gave it right back, "But Jenny, you're always so eager to share. I'm sure you remember our first time here when all you wanted to do was destroy his beloved boat and give me details to ruin his reputation."

"That was before we started..." Jenny flailed for a word to describe her current situation, "whatever this is. Now, I'm finding less and less to complain about."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find something." Kate knew she was right, her boss... partner... whatever was not the type to stop pissing someone off just because he started sleeping with her. Two divorces proved that. She wondered what he would do by the next time she saw Jenny.

* * *

_2003_

With the exhilaration of landing on an aircraft carrier and the comforts of a Navy jet, Kate wondered what Jenny had been complaining about. Then she took a trip on a cargo plane.


	11. Positano

AN1: A shorter one. And a little different, I think. I don't know. I just spent 48 hours straight writing a paper for school. So I'm exhausted and it's midnight. Caveat emptor (or in this case, caveat lector).

AN2: I believe that I am still chronologically ok so far. But I could be wrong.

AN3: I don't think I've disclaimed anything in a few chapters. Here I am disclaiming ownership of all things you recognize and possibly some things you don't.

* * *

_199?_

Kate and Jenny were sipping wine, not at their usual venue this time. Kate had been picked to temporarily replace an agent on the Secretary of State's detail on a trip through Europe while that agent stayed home with his pregnant wife. Somehow, Jenny had found out and somehow got a message to Kate asking her to meet when they would be in Rome at the same time. (Kate didn't ask how. It was 'need to know,' she was sure.) So Kate found herself sitting at a small cafe near the Vatican with an obviously distressed NCIS agent.

"He is absolutely unbearable!"

Kate didn't think she'd see Jenny this irate. Usually, Jenny seemed to go straight to revenge planning.

"You'd think he'd never been shot before."

That explained it. You don't go for revenge against the person you're sleeping with if they have a bullet hole in them. Though Kate could think of some exceptions to that rule.

"He'd be dead if I hadn't taken out the guy and he's yelling at me for taking the shot. I should be yelling at him for going out there to begin with."

"Why aren't you?" Kate asked.

Jenny looked up confused. "What?"

"Why aren't you with him, yelling at him?"

"Because I can't even be in the same room as him. He's gruffer than usual. I'm surprised Stan still has all of his limbs. It's worse than that time someone 'accidentally' switched his coffee with decaf."

Kate knew exactly who had done that.

"And his injury is making sex a little difficult."

Kate nearly spit out her wine at Jenny's blatant and unprompted reference to her sex life.

Jenny continued pretending not to notice. "Without the 'stress relief,' I'd just end up shooting him. And that's not a nice thing to do to someone who's already been shot once this week."

"Definitely not something I'd do to my boyfriend. Though my boyfriend isn't in a line of work where he's likely to get shot."

"Boyfriend?" Jenny perked up at this. "Do tell."

"Not much to tell. He's a lobbyist."

"Then he may very well end up being shot," Jenny interrupted. "Lobbyists don't have many friends in Washington."

Kate continued on. "He's good looking, has a decent sense of humor. He already doesn't like my hours, though. If he can't handle that, then it isn't going anywhere."

"You really should just find someone on the job then." Jenny winked.

"Easy for you to say. Hey, aren't there fraternization rules at NCIS?"

"If there are, we're ignoring them."

"And aren't you the one who told me I should go find _anyone_ for some stress relief?"

"I suppose I did, didn't I?" Jenny gave a devilish smile. "Well, at least you're getting some now."

Kate and Jenny sipped their wine and nibbled on some bruschetta in silence.

"Well, I need to be going before he finds out I slipped out on him. Otherwise all hell is going to break loose. Seriously, if the canals of Venice flood and the Leaning Tower of Pisa falls in the next few hours, you now know why."

Jenny didn't tell Kate were she was going. More 'need to know' business and Kate knew better than to ask.

Kate watched Jenny disappear into the crowd. At least she had one more hour before she was back on duty.

* * *

_2003_

Aside from wanting Gibbs to live, Kate mostly insisted that Gibbs wear his vest while going undercover as a Marine recruiter to avoid his temper if the sniper shot him.


	12. Coworkers and Friends

AN1: heat = exhaustion, exhaustion = writing, therefore you have this to read... I'm trying something a little different again.

AN2: If I'm losing it, it's because either 1) I never had it or 2) I haven't watched any NCIS since the season finale.

* * *

_199?_

Kate had a tough day at work. There was nothing special, only that Kate was getting frustrated with the daily grind. Kate walked into the bar and saw a familiar figure at her seat, however, it wasn't the person she was looking for.

"Marcie? What are you doing here?" Kate did not like having her escape invaded by her work life.

"Seeing if it's true. Rumor has it you've been drinking with the enemy."

Kate was confused. "What are you talking about?"

"That NCIS agent. It's not good for your career to be hanging out with the 'cowboys.'"

"Really?" Kate said sarcastically. "Why's that?"

"I'm concerned for you Kate. I don't want all of that work you're putting in to get the presidential detail going to waste. She's going to rub off on you and then who knows what will happen when you start pulling their stuff at work. Did you hear about this time she and her boss-"

"I see the rumors are spreading quickly through the federal agency gossip mill." Jenny interrupted and stuck out her hand to Marcie. "NCIS Rogue Special Agent Jenny Shepard. It's a pleasure to meet you. And everything you've heard..." Jenny paused, leaned in closely, and said in a mock whisper, "it's all true."

Jenny laughed at Marcie's shocked look. Kate just rolled her eyes.

Marcie recovered quickly and shook Jenny's hand. "Marcie, Secret Service. I work with Kate."

Marcie pushed off the bar and turned to Kate, "Don't say I didn't warn you." Marcie spun on her heels and walked out.

Kate and Jenny both reached for the drinks supplied by the bartender. This time it was Kate who downed hers and immediately ordered another.

"Well, who's she?" Jenny asked with distaste as she slid onto the stool Marcie had just vacated.

"Just a friend from work. A colleague mostly, but the closest thing I have to a friend on the job."

"I thought you had better taste in people, Kate. Is she always that uptight? She seems like one of those agents you were with when I first met you."

"Is that why you decided to sneak up on us?"

"It just looked like she needed to loosen up a bit. Would it have been better if I had done it with my weapon out?" Jenny gave a mischievous smile and tapped her waist where Kate knew her service weapon was holstered.

"Only if you wanted to lose your job. She's very straight laced, by the book, career driven. She would have turned you in for misconduct in a heart beat. And you can see she doesn't really like you."

"Well I don't particularly like her." Jenny stuck out her tongue playfully. "And we're not career driven?" she continued. "I'm all for the women with power, but I'm definitely going to have some fun while I'm doing it."

"And blue eyes and bourbon fall in the fun category." It was Jenny's turn to roll her eyes. "What? There's no way this thing you have could possibly help your career."

"Oh believe me, we are having fun. Far more fun than you've had in a long time."

Kate looked offended. "And how do you know I haven't been up to some fun of my own while you were overseas?"

"Is that lobbyist still around?" Jenny was certain that the answer was no.

Kate hung her head sheepishly. "He couldn't handle a woman with a gun. He saw it under my pillow one night and that was the end of things."

Jenny laughed. "I guess your friend was right; I have rubbed off on you a bit. Of course, you are still way too 'by the book.' I guess I still have some corrupting to do. Where should I start?"

"You've done enough, I'm sure. Just wait and see."

* * *

_2003_

It didn't even take a month before Kate realized Marcie had been right about Jenny's influence. There is no way she would have thought about a way around the DNA database restrictions if she hadn't met Jenny. Kate also was surprised Marcie didn't call her out on it when they met in the park. But Marcie was wrong about it damaging her career; there's no way she would have adjusted to life on Gibbs' team as quickly if Jenny hadn't "corrupted" her.


	13. Acquired Taste

AN1: Any NCIS I've ended up watching in the past few months has been both Kate-less and Jenny-less. However, Sasha Alexander has a new show on TNT with Angie Harmon so I got a mild kick in the ass to write another conversation. The show is great by the way and I will try not to mix up the characters. Please let me know if I am. Or, you know, if I've completely lost their voices altogether.

AN2: I probably haven't disclaimed anything in a while. I own nothing. There, disclaimed.

* * *

_199?_

Kate was getting closer to the Presidential detail; she could feel it. She had asked several times to fill in on some high security posts when other agents were unavailable and she had recently applied for and received a merit promotion. Cause for celebration, she thought. After sitting at the bar for a half hour, she heard the door swing open and turned to look. She was surprised to see Jenny walk in with a small limp in her step.

"I took a round to the thigh during an op in the Czech Republic," Jenny said in response to Kate's questioning look. "It's not like it's life threatening. Totally my boss' fault."

"He's back to being your boss now?"

"Eh, bad habit. He likes to hold it over me any time I slip."

"It has nothing to do with any, hem, bedroom activities that you still call him 'boss'?"

Jenny glared while taking a moment to get herself situated and order her usual. "He miscounted our targets when scouting the location we were taking out. Told me I was clear. I had a bad feeling about it, but he is the senior agent. All of a sudden, I'm on my back on the ground with a rather big guy pointing a rather big gun at me."

Kate listened on in horror.

"Then the guy just fell over. My _partner_ got a clean shot through the side of his head from across the room."

"That's a difficult shot."

"He was a sniper in the Marine Corps," Jenny said proudly.

"And yet he got you shot."

Jenny smiled. "He made it up to me. Several times over. Turns out there are a lot of things you can do even when laid up with a bum leg." Jenny took a drink.

Kate looked concerned. "Should you be drinking? Aren't you taking something for your leg?"

"Bourbon's the best pain killer there is."

"He really has rubbed off on you, Jenny. Do you drink anything but bourbon now?"

"'Course not." Jenny looked at the bartender and tapped the bar to get another drink. "There's nothing nearly as delicious. Here, try."

Kate took a sip and grimaced.

"It's an acquired taste. Much like spending time with my partner. As you've noticed, he can be quite... infuriating. There aren't many agents who last with him as a boss." Jenny looked thoughtful for a moment. "Maybe that's why they sent us undercover. We don't have to interact with other agents frequently and most of what we do is off the radar."

"So why have you lasted so long?"

"My stubborn side made me stick around long enough to appreciate his approach to the job. Took a little longer to appreciate him some other ways."

"Are you sure it wasn't the "other ways" that kept you around long enough? Not that you would ever admit it."

"So I hear you got a promotion," Jenny replied, quickly changing the subject.

Kate smiled. "I'm a profiler, remember. Don't think I don't know what you're doing. Avoiding the truth is never a good thing."

"So now you're a psychologist too?" Jenny snarked.

"I'll indulge you in your denial. Yes, I got a promotion. Things are going very well."

"And the extra curriculars?" Jenny inquired.

"None to speak of. Apparently no one can acquire the taste for a woman who carries a gun."

"Get yourself another agent to play with."

Kate laughed. "You have such a way with words, Shep. Does your partner know you're just playing with him?"

Jenny looked sheepish. "I've acquired a bit more of a taste for him than that."

Kate just shook her head. There was no way this was going to end well.

* * *

_2003_

Kate didn't even need a week at NCIS to realize exactly why there was an empty spot on Gibbs' team. Infuriating wasn't the half of it. And Jenny was right about Gibbs' style being an acquired taste; after a few months, she realized there was no one she would rather work for.


	14. Dear John

AN1: I'm really getting fuzzy on the time-line here. I apologize if there is a time warp, but I don't plan on doing much research into making it work perfectly.

AN2: Credit to Pandora of Ithilien for the topic - I appreciate the reminder about the stuff in SWAK.

AN3: If anyone recognizes little pieces surrounding Jenny's story, it's because they're from Harry Chapin's "A Better Place to Be." You don't need to know anything about the song and this is most definitely not a song-fic but for the sake of it, I'll disclaim ownership of the song along with everything else.

AN4: Ok, I'm brain cramping here. Any further suggestions or ideas?

* * *

_199? or 200?_

Another celebration, Kate planned. Surely Jenny had heard about her promotion to the Presidential detail and would show up at the bar to congratulate her.

When Kate arrived at the bar, she found she was only right about half of that. Jenny was at the bar alright, but she was knee deep in... something other than bourbon. There was something clearly very wrong.

"You look awfully much like shit for someone who just spent some time in Paris," Kate started. "It is the city of lights, the city of romance... "

"Undercover work is not all glamorous, you know. There's actual work involved and not all of it is pretty. Before you ask what, it's 'need to know.'" Jenny's tone was short.

"But still Jenny, there had to be some time where you and your boss could spend some "quality" time together."

"He wasn't my boss by then." Jenny sounded bitter. "He was my partner."

Kate was concerned now, "Was? Past tense? He's not dead, is he?" Kate's eyes went wide.

"No. I left him."

Kate was confused as hell now. "Wait, you spent all of this time pining over him and now you left him. What could he have possibly done?"

"_He_ didn't do anything. I fell in love with him."

"Afraid you'll be ex-wife number three?" Kate joked.

Kate expected a glare and a death threat, but all she got was a pained look.

Jenny took a couple of sips of whatever form of clear hard liquor that had filled her glass and told Kate her story:

"We were in Paris going over the plan for... the need to know stuff... and all of a sudden, I realized I was in far too deep. I knew I never wanted to just "play with him," as I've called it before, of that, I am sure. But I never planned on falling in love with him. I am career driven. I'm not your friend Marcie, of course. But I have my five point plan to get to the top. I've risen through the ranks pretty quickly. And mind you, not a bit of it came because I was sleeping with him."

"I never thought it did," Kate interrupted. Jenny didn't seem to notice and continued:

"No woman has gotten so far as I have so quickly. I have plans. Big plans. And they don't include falling in love with my boss. My plans don't include a relationship at all. A boyfriend, a husband, a family, that was supposed to happen once I got to the top. I was only supposed to want it when I got to the top. This is way too much; I never wanted this. But I'm in love with him. I couldn't just break up with him. Instead, I took another promotion. I still haven't told him. Given how I left him, I suppose I never will. But he will hear about it through the NCIS grapevine, of course. All he has from me now is a letter. I left it for him, made excuses, and secretly took a flight back to the US. An "it's not you, it's me" letter. A "Dear John" letter. God, is there a worse way to break up with someone?"

Kate took that question as rhetorical and let Jenny continue.

"That makes me a horrible person, putting a promotion ahead of what was a wonderful relationship. It seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I know it wasn't. Not the way I'm rising through the ranks. I'd get another offer in a few years. Instead, I'm plowing ahead at full speed through my career. I don't even know when I'll stop. My plan doesn't include a top. It's really just a plan to keep going. And I'm sacrificing so much to get there."

Kate knew this was the closest Jenny would ever get to crying.

Jenny slowed down. "Well, I guess I'm out of gin. And I know you've been moving up as much as I have. Congratulations. Though I imagine now we're both lonely."

Kate didn't have the heart to tell her that she had found, if nothing else, someone to fool around with. Nor did Kate know how to respond to Jenny's ramblings. It was clear from Jenny's glazed look that the story hadn't been told to Kate in particular and that Jenny was quite intoxicated. It was amazing that a woman who could hold more bourbon down than anyone Kate knew could get so drunk on so little gin. Then again, Jenny could have been there for a while before Kate had arrived.

* * *

_2005_

It took Kate a while to put it together (they were in a plague scare, after all) but she soon realized that the Dear John letter Jenny had written and the Dear John letter Gibbs had received were one and the same.


	15. Mistakes

AN1: This belongs somewhere in the vicinity of Undercover I (Chapter 7, I think). Maybe, after a while, I'll move them around but in the meantime, I'll leave this at the end since it is the newest chapter.

AN2: Thank you to Pandora of Ithilien for some help with the end of this one.

AN3: This is officially winding down because I'm out of ideas and I haven't watched NCIS in ages. There will be just two more unless I get a sudden burst of inspiration as the new season begins. I did not find the first episode to be particularly satisfying.

AN4: I changed the rating to T because I cursed once in it. Does that warrant a 'T'? Have I cursed, or rather, have I had Kate or Jenny curse at any point before this? I can't remember.

* * *

_199?_

Kate had just worked an extraordinarily long but thoroughly satisfying day on a protection detail. Actually, as she thought about it, it was probably more like three days. She was past feeling tired and had moved on to punchy and playful. A drink would top off the successful completion of her assignment nicely. She started her trek over to Georgetown.

A short while later, Kate walked into the bar and saw Jenny moping over her drink. She walked up to the bar and whispered in the red-head's ear, "Did somebody kill your dog?"

Jenny jumped.

Kate was surprised she had been able to sneak up on the normally hyper-aware NCIS agent. She hadn't even received a nasty look for doing it. Something must really be wrong, she figured. "Ok, Shep, spill it. What did he do this time?"

"It wasn't him. It was me."

Kate gave her a confused look.

"I shot a guy. It's need to know stuff, but suffice it to say I wasn't supposed to shoot him."

Kate didn't quite know how to respond to that. She would only ever shoot in self-defense; her assignments did not involve her shooting foreign operatives. She assumed Jenny's assignments must involve something of the sort.

"He didn't die, in case you were wondering. And it's not going to do any damage to my career."

"Well that's good, right?"

"Yes and no. He covered for me."

"So he did do something," Kate remarked smugly.

"No profiling. I'm concerned about my mistake, not that he may have something to lord over me for my entire career."

Kate smiled. "I didn't have to. You seem to have the profiling thing down pretty well. Want my job?" She teased. "You managed to pinpoint the psychological underpinnings of your misery which are not actually from your mistake itself but from the fact that you failed in front of your boss, or whatever you're calling him these days. You are denying the very truth that your subconscious is perfectly aware of and is making known to you through your denial. In fact, that you bring these things up via a denial says something..."

"Shut it, Todd," Jenny interrupted. "I don't need a psychology lecture. I need to not shoot people I'm not supposed to shoot."

Kate thought about continuing into some Freudian theory, but thought better than to subject Jenny to the contents of her most recent training lecture and herself to Jenny's wrath. Who knew where Jenny was packing these days. "So what did he do?"

"He made it look like a "business acquaintance" wanted to make an example out of someone who didn't uphold their end of a bargain. A few falsified papers and a fake bank account later, I'm in the clear."

"It sounds like he's done this before. If you want to push his buttons sometime, ask him why he knew exactly how to take care of it."

"That's not all though," Jenny paused and continued in a whisper. "He wanted to have sympathy sex."

Kate coughed and sputtered on her drink.

"He apparently had a need for sweet and tender instead of passionate and instead of asking me, he just tried to use this as an excuse. Men!" Jenny spat.

Kate wasn't particularly sure how to respond. That Freudian lecture was starting to sound pretty good.

After moment, Jenny spoke up again. "Maybe this is the mistake. You know they always say that dating your boss, partner, whatever is a bad idea. Something about not sh*tting where you eat, right?"

Kate's head shot up. Could Jenny really be saying what Kate thought she was saying? Kate at least had the decency not to say "I told you so." Of course, that would have required explaining that she had been thinking it was not going to end well from the beginning. She'd stick to Freud for now.

* * *

_2003_

Gibbs made it known that Kate's failure to stab Ari while in autopsy was an unforgivable error. There was a certain tension in the room whenever they were together. It could have been worse though. At least she wasn't alone in Europe, undercover, and sleeping with him._  
_


	16. Cheveux Hirsute

AN1: I had another 2 chapters planned but didn't have them backed up on my computer and the server deletes them if you don't touch them for 60 days. So I'm starting from scratch and haven't written since I posted the last chapter. I also don't really remember where I left off and gave only a cursory glance to my previous chapters. At this point, I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not repeating myself.

AN2: Tuck this one in before Dear John (chapter 14).

AN3: I'm still open to topic suggestions. Depending on what year the old stuff in Baltimore took place, I'm thinking Jenny might have a place somewhere in there.

AN4: Since I haven't written for a while, I'm going to disclaim all that stuff again. I own nothing. Also, this is another late night unbeta'd chapter.

* * *

_199?_

Kate couldn't always complain about protection details. In fact, the very definition of vacation for a Secret Service agent was being part of the advance team for a dignitary visit to another country. It really doesn't take a week to prepare for the Secretary of State to visit Paris. In fact, Kate was enjoying this particular detail. In her free time, she'd visited the Louvre, the Arc de Triumphe, the Bastille, and the Eiffel Tour. At this particular moment, she was sitting in a cafe with a view of the Eiffel Tour sipping what had to be the most bitter coffee she'd ever tasted. It seemed like a good time to test her profiling skills. A blond girl walked by clinging to a skinny male - artists, Kate immediately thought. She heard the girl make a pretentious comment about how "_being in the shadow of the Eiffel Tour was like..._" Kate stopped paying attention. She would not waste her time focusing on a pair of American tourist-snobs. A man in a dark suit standing tucked away in a corner caught her attention. She studied him for a moment and decided that he was a Parisian businessman taking lunch, perhaps waiting for his mistress.

"Not a mistress. He's definitely waiting for a hooker."

Kate whipped her head around and saw that Jenny had slipped into the seat opposite hers. "What? How?" Kate stuttered.

"You should really pay more attention to your surroundings, _Agent_ Todd. We're staying in the same hotel."

Kate shook her head. How could she have missed that?

"Don't beat yourself up too much," Jenny said, "I'm prepping for an undercover mission and I'm supposed to be laying low. Apparently I'm good at it, if you're the best the Secret Service has got." Jenny paused. "So, Condi's coming for a visit?"

"The best paid vacation there is," Kate beamed. "So are you here alone?" A waitress placed a cup of coffee in front of Jenny.

"Nope. I'm still enjoying the perks of undercover spy sex with my partner."

If the bitterness of the coffee wasn't enough to make Kate spit it out, the blatant comment certainly was. Jenny, however, calmly sat there and downed the coffee in one gulp.

"How can you drink this stuff?" Kate paused for a moment. "Oh, are his coffee drinking habits rubbing off on you now too?"

"Yes, and I'm withholding his coffee at the moment until he does what I ask."

"Do I even want to know what you're asking?"

Jenny shook her head. "It's definitely not what you're thinking. I just asked him to cut his hair. Properly. The marine cut doesn't fly for this mission and right now it's all long and shaggy. In the entire time I've known him, he has never had a decent hair cut. A man who has had two wives should have learned that women care about these things."

"And maybe that's why he has two _ex_-wives. So this is more about you than the upcoming mission," Kate smiled knowingly. "Is it that serious between you two?"

Jenny ignored the question and continued ranting, "You'd think a man who can do anything he says he can, and mind you, he says he can do a lot, would be able to get a proper hair cut. He claims that he can but I'm still waiting. And while I'm waiting, I've hidden his personal blend of coffee and kept him from ordering any. It's the 'anything you can do, I can do better' principle. I'm waiting for the day when he can't do something that he says he's going to do. And then I shall lord it over him for as long as it serves my purposes." Jenny gave a fake haughty laugh to accompany her last statement.

"He's really that good?"

Jenny grinned smugly, "No, better."

* * *

_2004_

Though she'd only had a couple of months of first hand knowledge, she knew she could say with 100% certainty that Gibbs was not able to find a decent barber. She'd discovered that Jenny was right - Gibbs could do anything else.


	17. Sexual Harassment

AN1: This one is back toward the beginning, right before Jenny and Gibbs start sleeping together.

AN2: I own nothing.

AN3: I'm writing because I am confined to my couch after several fits of stupidity. Suggestions to others: don't fall down a concrete flight of stairs and stretch before you throw a baseball as hard as you can to see where it registers on the radar gun. It will save your back and shoulder.

* * *

_199?_

It was a regular week and Kate was making her regular trip to the bar in Georgetown. In fact, her week had been far too "regular." The Secret Service was supposed to be exciting. What do they advertise? "Building on a Tradition of Excellence and Meeting the Challenges of the Future." Ha! They left out the part where she'd be subject to spending her days with the most dull coworkers imaginable. Kate wondered where that tradition of excellence went. And to look to the future would require having agents who still think it's the 1950s. She hoped Jenny could change her mood. Maybe she'll be pissed at her boss again and we can go burn his boat, Kate thought.

Once again Jenny had beaten her to the bar and was knee deep in her drink. Kate walked up and sat down next to her. "What is it this time?"

"Today was the annual sexual harassment seminar. All agents not working active cases must attend." Jenny rolled her eyes.

"You mean they actually train those guys how to harass? Considering what I deal with every day, it would make sense."

"Well my boss doesn't particular like these things. I can't imagine why," Jenny added sarcastically.

"He said he wanted to shoot himself and would do anything to get out of it. So I decided to get him sent to the principal's office."

Kate gave her a questioning look.

"The director. He's getting kind of sick of having, well, any member of my team in his office. And he's the one who made the seminar mandatory. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone."

"Ok. So what did you do?" Kate knew that what ever she could think of that Jenny might have done, it was definitely something worse.

Jenny got a glimmer in her eye. "Well, I started by engaging in what could be considered sexual harassment while the lady from DOD was talking."

"And he didn't enjoy that?"

"I was doing it to Decker. And I decided to see how far I could go before he felt the need to... intervene."

Kate could picture how well that went. "Let me guess, he lasted all of five minutes."

"Not even," Jenny said proudly. "After about 30 seconds, Decker got head slapped so hard, he probably has a concussion from it. The DOD lady told him to go see the director and that he'd have to complete the seminar at a future time. The boss had such a murderous look on his face, I couldn't help but laugh."

"And he didn't shoot you for making him have to take the seminar again," Kate looked genuinely concerned for Jenny's well being.

"Don't worry, Agent Todd. I was a consummate professional regarding the matter."

Kate took a moment to marvel how Jenny could pull off "sardonically pompous" after consuming so much alcohol.

"I apologized to the DOD lady on his behalf and suggested that, rather than he re-take the seminar, I just take notes for him. The DOD lady seemed very grateful not to have to deal with him again," Jenny said innocently.

Kate laughed. "So what did you actually do?"

"Do you doubt me? I took excellent notes... a very, very detailed account of what we _shouldn't_ be doing to, I mean, with each other," Jenny paused and smirked. "And left them on his desk," she finished.

Kate just shook her head. Maybe NCIS was the agency built on a tradition of doing whatever the hell we want, so long as we get things done. That was far more interesting than the Secret Service.

* * *

_2004_

_"You mean they actually train you guys how to harass?" _Kate thought about how her comments about the sexual harassment seminar echoed her words to Jenny from years ago. Then she had a spark of recognition as she realized she knew exactly why Gibbs wanted to shoot himself during these things. And she was as grateful as any of them when that case came in.


	18. Destined to Shoot

AN1: It's been a while, I know. The muse hit while the bloody construction workers were keeping me awake at 2 a.m. All mistakes are thus mine. And I still own nothing.

AN2: I apologize if the characters are a little off. I have not watched NCIS in ages, not even re-runs. Maybe I'll clean it up later.

* * *

_199? or 200?  
_

Kate was in Tel Aviv doing advance work on the president's upcoming visit. Having a few hours off, she wandered around the city, exploring the local sights and cultures. She came across a café that immediately drew her attention, though she was not sure why. The café was doing decent business. In the corner of her eye, she observed a petite woman with long, dark hair and olive skin. She looked no different from any other Israeli woman Kate had seen, but something about her, the way she oozed both beauty and danger, held Kate captive.

'Instinct,' Kate thought, 'always trust your gut.' Kate then kicked herself. She had obviously absorbed too much in her previous encounters with one Agent Jenny Shepard.

Kate cautiously approached the woman, who appeared not to have noticed the way Kate was scrutinizing her. All of a sudden, Kate felt herself being watched. She spun around, reaching for her service weapon concealed in the small of her back. As she steadied her grip to line up her potential target, she found herself staring directly at a laughing redheaded NCIS agent.

"Nice to see you again too, Agent Todd. It's been a while." Jenny shot Kate her best smirk.

"God, Jenny. Didn't your mother teach you never to sneak up on people, particularly ones you know are carrying a gun?"

"But what would be the fun in that? And would you put that thing away?" Jenny gestured to the Glock Kate still had cocked and pointed at her.

Jenny walked Kate over to the table where the raven-haired Israeli woman was sitting. "Agent Todd, this is Officer Ziva David, my new partner." Ziva and Kate introduced themselves and exchanged pleasantries as Jenny and Kate took seats at the table. "Mossad," Jenny mouthed to Kate.

After they had settled in and ordered drinks (tea for Jenny, not bourbon or black coffee, Kate noted), Kate leaned over and whispered to Jenny. "How's your last partner doing?"

"Oh, Jethro?" Ziva chimed in. "I think the director thought Jenny was destined to shoot him, so she has been assigned to a joint mission with Mossad to keep her away from NCIS for a while."

"That had nothing to do with it," Jenny argued defiantly. "Though now that you mention it..."

"What did you do that would make the director think that? You already burned your relationship with him." Kate paused. "Wait, you didn't burn his boat too?"

"Of course not."

"Well, whatever the reason, we are happy to have her here rather than sitting at home turning into a couch turnip."

Kate shot Jenny a questioning look. "Ziva, it's couch potato. English idioms are not your strong suit. And I would have turned into no such thing."

Jenny turned Kate, "And how do you know _Jethro_ isn't still a sore spot?"

"The Secret Service isn't a spy agency, but I do have my sources and they tell me that you've been taking care of yourself well over the past few months. Plenty of company in passing. It seemed like you'd moved along just fine."

Jenny's eyes briefly expressed sadness. She quickly masked it, but not fast enough for Kate not to notice.

Kate was kind enough to move the conversation along and abruptly changed the subject. "So, Officer David, what do you do for the Mossad?"

"I could tell you, but then I would have to shoot you." Ziva turned to Jenny, "That is an expression you like to use, yes?"

Kate laughed. "But do not worry," Ziva continued. "I have no intention of shooting you. I knew who you were when you watching me earlier. Though, I perhaps am destined to shoot Jethro on Jenny's behalf."

* * *

_2003_

"No, I think I'm destined to shoot you," Kate shot back to Special Agent Gibbs. It echoed in her head, and she could not hold back a smile as she thought about the last time she had heard those words in the same context. An afternoon with Jenny Shepard and a Mossad officer was not one she would ever forget.

* * *

_2005_

As Ziva shot Ari, she thought briefly back to her afternoon in Tel Aviv with Jenny and Agent Todd and shivered about how close her statement about shooting Agent Gibbs had come. Ziva was grateful that her shot ultimately protected the man who held her former partner's heart. Once tensions died down, she knew she had to find out more about Agent Todd, with whom she was now inextricably linked.


End file.
